Vavilapalli Durga Sankar, Banik Soma, Peri Raja Gopal, B Muthuraaman, Miryala Muralidhar, Murakami Masato, Alicja Klimkowicz, K Asokan, M S Ramachandra Rao, Singh Shubra
Crystal Growth Centre, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India.
Synchrotron Utilization Section, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, 452013, India.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 17;10(1):2713. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-59454-w.
CaFeO (CFO) is a potentially viable material for alternate energy applications. Incorporation of nitrogen in CaFeO (CFO-N) lattice modifies the optical and electronic properties to its advantage. Here, the electronic band structures of CFO and CFO-N were probed using Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The optical bandgap of CFO reduces from 2.21 eV to 2.07 eV on post N incorporation along with a clear shift in the valence band of CFO indicating the occupation of N 2p levels over O 2p in the valence band. Similar effect is also observed in the bandgap of CFO, which is tailored upto 1.43 eV by N ion implantation. The theoretical bandgaps of CFO and CFO-N were also determined by using the Density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The photoactivity of these CFO and CFO-N was explored by organic effluent degradation under sunlight. The feasibility of utilizing CFO and CFO-N samples for energy storage applications were also investigated through specific capacitance measurements. The specific capacitance of CFO is found to increase to 224.67 Fg upon N incorporation. CFO-N is thus found to exhibit superior optical, catalytic as well as supercapacitor properties over CFO expanding the scope of brownmillerites in energy and environmental applications.
CaFeO(CFO)是一种在替代能源应用中具有潜在可行性的材料。在CaFeO(CFO-N)晶格中掺入氮会改变其光学和电子特性,使其具有优势。在此,使用紫外光电子能谱(UPS)和紫外可见光谱对CFO和CFO-N的电子能带结构进行了探测。掺入氮后,CFO的光学带隙从2.21 eV降至2.07 eV,同时CFO价带明显发生位移,表明价带中N 2p能级占据了O 2p能级。在CFO的带隙中也观察到类似效应,通过氮离子注入可将其调整至1.43 eV。还使用密度泛函理论(DFT)计算确定了CFO和CFO-N的理论带隙。通过在阳光下对有机废水进行降解,探索了这些CFO和CFO-N的光活性。还通过比电容测量研究了将CFO和CFO-N样品用于储能应用的可行性。发现掺入氮后CFO的比电容增加到224.67 F/g。因此,发现CFO-N在光学、催化以及超级电容器性能方面优于CFO,从而扩大了钙钛矿型结构在能源和环境应用中的范围。